Helena Norberg-Hodge is the founder and director of Local Futures. She is the author of Ancient Futures (Chelsea Green, 2016) and the producer and director of the award-winning 2011 documentary “The Economics of Happiness.” Norberg-Hodge is the recipient of the Right Livelihood Award, the Goi Peace Prize, and the Arthur Morgan Award.
Latest by this author
Our food system is linked to an economic system fundamentally biased against what’s good for people and the planet.
Born into an international family, and educated in Sweden, Germany, Austria, England and the United States, Helena specialized in linguistics, including studies with Noam Chomsky at MIT. In 1975, when she was living in Paris, she was invited to accompany a film team to the remote region of Ladakh, or ‘Little Tibet’. The area had been sealed off from the outside world and had only recently been opened. She became the first Westerner in modern times to master the Ladakhi language, and gained deep insights into the workings of one of the few cultures that remained untouched by the modern world.
In 1978 Norberg-Hodge founded the Ladakh Project, which countered the romanticized images of the Western consumer culture while strengthening traditional organic agriculture and introducing renewable energy as an alternative to fossil fuel-based development. This work garnered international respect. Ever since, Norberg-Hodge has been invited to speak at major institutions and universities around the world (including Harvard, Oxford and the World Bank) and has had meetings with prominent policy-makers from the White House to the European Commission.
Her broad international experience forced her to question some of the fundamental assumptions of the modern economy. She became a pioneer of the new economy movement, encouraging social and environmental activists to move beyond treating symptoms and to focus on the need for fundamental change to the economy. In 1992, she brought together leaders from the Global North and South to co-found the International Forum on Globalization, which challenged the global economic system.
In 1983, Norberg-Hodge founded the international non-profit group Local Futures, which she still directs. In that role, she has initiated localization movements on every continent, particularly in South Korea, Japan, the UK, and Australia, and has launched both the International Alliance for Localization and World Localization Day. She also co-founded the Global Ecovillage Network.
Committed to raising awareness of the need for systemic change, she collaborates with thought-leaders, activists, and community groups across the globe.External
Local Futures
The Power of Decentralization
Great Transition Initiative | November | 2023
Helena Norberg-Hodge argues that the biggest obstacle to a strong united movement is a lack of understanding of the global economic system. This centralized system—which affects the entire global population—is a vast invisible hand that exerts ever more power, not only over our political and economic systems, but also over our view of history, our view of human nature, and view of ourselves. Rather than looking critically at this potent force, much of humanity has been sold on the idea that the modern industrial economy has brought us genuine progress, freeing us from the bonds of inferior, premodern cultures. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Co-authors: Steven Gorelick and Henry Coleman | Truthout | May | 2022
The COVID-19 pandemic showed that localized economies are better equipped to respond to the needs of their communities.
Strengthening Local Economies
Kosmos | September | 2020
The crises of the modern world verify what Indigenous cultures have always known: that all phenomena are inextricably interconnected. As the Amazon rainforest—one of the most vital organs of the Earth—is razed to fuel the global economy, a virus borne of disrupted ecosystems assaults the lungs of human beings. As economic policies are enacted in Washington, Brussels, and Beijing, people are uprooted and ecosystems destroyed thousands of miles away.
In the early twenty-first century, awareness of our interdependence with the natural world has steadily seeped into the dominant cultural narrative, and with it has come a greater appreciation for non-Western cultures and Indigenous peoples. In virtually every sphere, ecological and socially conscious initiatives have sprouted from the grassroots. From “ecopsychology” to ecological architecture, from human rights campaigns to support for the underprivileged, people have demonstrated their desire to develop kinder, gentler, more sustainable ways of living.
However, in this same period, the global economy—initially propelled by colonialism, slavery, and racist genocide—has continued on its same trajectory. Just as colonization accumulated wealth primarily for global traders, the relentless globalization of the economy is serving an ever-smaller handful of multinational corporations and banks. Under the seductive guise of “progress,” this system continues to undermine land-based economies of interdependence, replacing them with anonymous and unaccountable global supply chains.Co-authors: Damien Cave | New York Times | October | 2020
Damien Cave describes how Helena Norberg-Hodge has become a lodestar for people all over the world demanding an alternative to the global system of trade. Her vocal supporters include the Dalai Lama, the British comedian Russell Brand, the San Francisco chef Alice Waters, and Iain McGilchrist, the Oxford literary scholar and psychiatrist. “Whether or not our civilization survives, Helena’s work is of prime importance,” said Dr. McGilchrist, whose groundbreaking 2009 book, “The Master and His Emissary,” argued that each half of the brain generates a fundamentally different way of experiencing the world. “Encouraging local communities is a vital antidote to universal globalism.” “And if civilization should break down,” he added, “it will be our only hope for survival. We need to be acting on her ideas now.”
Publications by this author
Learning from Ladakh
Local Futures | April | 2016
Ladakh, or ʻLittle Tibetʼ, a wildly beautiful desert land up in the Western Himalayas, is a place of few resources and an extreme climate. Yet for more than a thousand years, it has been home to a thriving culture. Traditions of frugality and cooperation, coupled with an intimate and location-specific knowledge of the environment, enabled the Ladakhis not only to survive, but to prosper. Everyone had enough to eat; families and communities were strong; the status of women was high. Then came ʻdevelopmentʼ. Now one finds pollution and divisiveness, inflation and unemployment, intolerance and greed. Centuries of ecological balance and social harmony are under threat from pressures of Western consumerism.
Ancient Futures, now translated into more than 40 languages, is Helena Norberg-Hodge’s moving portrait of tradition and change in Ladakh, a scathing critique of the global economy, and a rallying call for economic localization.
In the preface, she presents a kaleidoscope of projects around the world that are pointing the way to both human and ecological well-being. These initiatives derive from a growing localization movement, which works to rebuild place-based cultures—strengthening community and our connection with nature. Ancient Futures challenges us to redefine what a healthy society means and to find ways to carry centuries-old wisdom into our future.Steps to an Economics of Happiness
Local Futures | June | 2019
This book connects the dots between our social, economic, ecological and spiritual crises, revealing how a systemic shift from global to local can address these seemingly disparate problems. Distilling the wisdom gleaned from four decades of activism and direct experience in both the global North and South, Helena lucidly deconstructs the old narrative of ‘progress’ through technological advance and corporate growth, while presenting a concise and compelling case for economic localization.
Media by this author
Feature | January | 2011
The Economics of Happiness spells out the social, spiritual, and ecological costs of today’s global economy, while highlighting the multiple benefits of economic localization. The film showcases the steps people are already taking worldwide to rebuild their local economies and communities. Featuring Vandana Shiva, Bill McKibben, David Korten, Samdhong Rinpoche, and other inspiring thinkers and activists.
Feature | January | 1993
The award-winning film based on the book was produced and narrated in 1993 by Local Futures’ programs director, John Page. Ancient Futures is much more than a film about Ladakh. The breakdown of Ladakh's culture and environment forces us to re-examine what we really mean by ʻprogressʼ—not only in the ʻdevelopingʼ parts of the world, but in the industrialized world as well. The story of Ladakh teaches us about the root causes of environmental, social, and psychological problems, and provides valuable guidelines for our own future.
Interview | January | 2024
Helena Norberg-Hodge discusses her background as a linguist, writer, documentarian, and supporter of the concept of local economies. She is the founder and director of Local Futures, an international non-profit organization that seeks to restore ecological, social and spiritual well-being through economic communities around the world.
Interview | October | 2023
In episode 191 of the podcast All That We Are, we hear powerful voices including Bayo Akomolafe, Lyla June, Manish Jain and Helena Norberg-Hodge. This episode gathers deep insights into the predicaments of our time. It is an invitation to radically inspire our imagination, shift our perspectives, ask different questions, and explore new ways to become involved in serving each other and the world we live in during these turbulent times.
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